Ding Junhui or Judd Trump?

I'm writing this text on the day Ding Junhui has beaten Judd Trump 9-4 in the Semi-Finals of the 2016 International Championship. And as Trump had reached the Final of the two events prior to the International Championship, Ding Junhui's success over him made people discuss on social media about who's the better player. I'm gonna be discussing about it here in the Blog right now, and for it, I will start looking back at how these players came storming into the scene.
It was Ding Junhui who first appeared, he won the 2005 China Open at 18 becoming the second youngest player ever to win a Ranking Title, beating no other than Stephen Hendry in that Final. Ding then failed to qualify for the World Championship that year losing his first match, but it didn't take much longer for the Chinese to claim his first Triple Crown event title beating Steve Davis in the Final of the UK Championship in December that year. It was a promising start for Ding's career, and although he kept disappointing at the Crucible, the Chinese sensation enjoyed great success in the following years, winning another UK Championship and catching the Masters title in his second Final in 2011. Ding then found fantastic form in the 2013/14 season, winning 5 Ranking Events in that campaign to equal Stephen Hendry's record set at the 90's. And although Ding couldn't reach the Final in any of the Triple Crown events, those 5 Ranking titles in 2013/14 helped him to spend a total of 22 days at the top of the World Ranking in the next two years.
Judd Trump first impressed the World at the age of 21 when he won, coincidentally, the same China Open in 2011 by beating Mark Selby in the Final. As it was with Ding, the title of the China Open wasn't enough to secure Trump a spot at the World Championship that year, but the Englishmen came through the Qualifiers and went on to reach the Final of the World Championship. Trump played brilliant Snooker throughout that World Championship, and was only denied the title by a peaking John Higgins. But then Trump went on to win the UK Championship later that year for his first Triple Crown event win, another similarity with Ding Junhui. The next year Trump reached many Finals and won a few of them, including the International Championship's versus Neil Robertson, a win which brought him to the top spot of the World Ranking. But despite having enjoyed a great year and become World Number One, 2012 didn't see Judd Trump in the Final of any Triple Crown event, just as it happened with Ding Junhui in 2013/14.


Now I'll talk about the time when both players started to struggle on the main tour, and it begins with Judd Trump. After enjoying the two best years of his Snooker career Trump's form disappeared, and after the title of the UK Championship in 2011 Trump failed to reach another Triple Crown event Final for 3 years. From December 2012 to November 2014 it was 2 years to forget in Judd Trump's career, he had earned a lot of money and fame very quickly and struggled to keep his focus on the Snooker table, looking like to be enjoying life out in late nights a lot more than winning titles. What the players do off the table though, is their exclusive business, but Trump I'm sure will be the first to admit that it was really affecting his results. I've always been a fan of his mental strenghts, it doesn't matter whether he's 0-17 behind or 17-0 up on the scoreboard, he'll always have the same attitude playing the shots he finds the right one to play. However his technique let him down a little bit, he moves a lot when he's cueing, his shot selection wasn't clever, his safety didn't exist at all and you can see it takes him a lot more effort to keep the cue ball under control than it takes from other players, his cue ball always seem to run a lot more over the table and he loses position too often. Of course his mental strenghts and potting abilitites still helped him to make the semi-finals of the World Championship in 2013, his best result during those two forgettable years.
In this term, Ding Junhui seems to be the opposite of Trump. The Chinese has a lovely touch that remembers John Higgins', a ruthless cue ball control that remembers Ronnie O`Sullivan's and long potting skills that are second to none while the psychological side of his game was, for most of his career, his weakness. Ding finished that season he won 5 Ranking titles with a 1st Round defeat at the World Championship, another poor result to add with so many he collected at the Crucible. It's fair to say Ding is the best player in China and the expectations on him to become World Championship make justice to the argument that Snooker is the most popular sport of his crountry, one that has a population of nearly 1,5 Billion people and that's probably why he always struggled with his mindset during his matches. The 2014 China Open proved to be his last Ranking title for two and a half years when the Chinese was entering the toughest moment of his career to date, even dropping out of the Top 16 after a first round exit at the China Open in 2016.


Both players came through those dark times and cameback stronger than ever though. In 2014 Judd Trump started to work out his technique, improved his safety game and discipline and as a result he made the Final of the Champion of Champions in November and the UK Championship in December, putting an end to the bad moment he had had. Trump lost both of these Finals, but he played Ronnie O`Sullivan in both and it's fair to say that 2014 was the best year of O`Sullivan's career, a career that is considered by many as the best somebody's had, and for Trump to win 9 frames out of Ronnie O`Sullivan in the Final of the UK Championship, the event that crowned the 2014 of Ronnie O`Sullivan, it was such a thing, recognized even by O`Sullivan himself, who said it was the most difficult match he had played yet. Trump then kept playing well, and since then he's beaten O`Sullivan in the three Finals they've played after that, and also won the China Open for a second time. In his last three tournaments, Judd Trump was winner of the European Masters, runner-up at the English Open and Semi-Finalist at the International Championship.
Ding Junhui also worked out what he needed to improve on his game, he's now coached by Terry Griffiths, the 1979 World Champion who's now a renowned coach for improving the mindset of his players. It clearly worked for Ding, after dropping out of the top 16 after the China Open in 2016, he had to play the Qualifiers for the World Championship, and he didn't just came through the Qualifiers but for the first time reached the Final of the World Championship at the Crucible, beating Judd Trump himself in the last 16. He lost the Final to Mark Selby, but now he's back to the top 5 in the World Ranking and with today's win over Judd Trump he'll be playing his third Final of the season having beaten Stuart Bingham in the 6Red World Championship's and Mark Selby in the Shanghai Masters'.



I have just given you the history of both players so far, and yet it's very difficult to pick one because they're very similar generally, but when you compare them with each other you realize there's an abismal difference between them. Ding Junhui is technically miles ahead Judd Trump, his cue ball control, cue action, long potting and safety play are and have always been a lot better that Trump's, but I've always thought Trump could win the World Championship and Ding couldn't because Trump was a lot stronger psychologically than Ding, and in Snooker you are not going anywhere if you haven't got bottle. But it's changed now, Ding became a player with plenty of bottle and he can hold himself under extreme pressure.
Ding has, as of today, made 15 more professional Century Breaks than Judd Trump has, but being two years older you can't say that's a big advantage for Ding, though Ding will lead Trump in every other stat. Today's win over Judd Trump as well as May's win at the Crucible have given Ding Junhui the lead in the head-to-head, 8-6, and Ding has simply won twice more Ranking event titles (12) than Judd Trump (6). In terms of Maximum Breaks, Ding's excellence in the cue ball control department has made of him the 4th player who's most produced maximum breaks in the history of Snooker with 6, while Judd Trump has only made 2 - none of them on TV.

In my opinion it's clear that Ding Junhui have in 2016 became not just better than Judd Trump, but he's gone miles ahead the Englishmen because now he can match him in the psychological department.
And although neither of them have won a Triple Crown event since 2011, there's no need to worry because they're still young in Snooker terms, and have just kicked off the peak of their career, it will hopefully become a great rivalry in Snooker and these two look like being the two best players of the "next generation".
For now Trump has got some catching up to do and although I've always thought he's a future multiple World Champion, the competition he's gonna have to face makes me wonder whether he'll ever win the World Championship in fact.

Who do you think will be more successful player in the end?


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